AidData research assistants attend select Global Innovation Forum

This past August, International
Relations major Alex Atkins ’13 and Kedar Pavgi ’11 were part of a select
group of 100 young entrepreneurs and college students from more than 25 countries invited
to attend Athgo International’s 4th Global Innovation Forum on Climate Change
and Constructive Entrepreneurship.

The two were chosen because of their involvement
with AidData, the largest open database on project-level development finance in
the world.

AidData is a partnership between the College of William & Mary,
Brigham Young University and Development Gateway, a non-profit organization
that provides information tools and services to support international
development. Atkins and Pavgi are both past research assistants with AidData.

The Global Innovation Forum,
which was held at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., focused on encouraging individual
action and involvement in climate change issues through constructive entrepreneurship.
Though Atkins and Pavgi did not present work on AidData at the World Bank,
their time with the project helped prepare them for the forum by teaching them
about the field of development assistance, including its purposes and goals.

“Going into Athgo, I had a good grasp on the
issues confronting the world, especially in the field of climate change,” said
Pavgi.

Of the many presentations given
during the three-day event, one mentioned the collaborative efforts of AidData
and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. “It was really cool seeing the work that we
had been a part of on a screen presented as actual international undertaking,”
Pavgi added.

While in D.C., the conference
organizers assigned the William & Mary students to two different entrepreneurial
teams. Pavgi’s group designed a business model to start a composting company in
a small town.

“The idea was to collect food
waste, create compost, and sell it back to local farmers at a lower cost than
traditional fertilizer," he said. "We added a social benefit to this venture, in that by
accepting the cheaper compost, the farmer would agree to distribute fresh food
and produce to lower-income families in that community.”

Even though presenting their
proposed solutions to a room full of established stakeholders was a bit
intimidating, Pavgi remained focused on how fortunate they were to be a part of
such a unique opportunity. The most
memorable moment for him was hearing Nobel Prize Winner and Grameen Bank founder
Dr. Muhammad Yunus speak.

“I have been a fan of his work for quite some
time, and it was awesome to hear him speak. To top it off, I also got a picture
with him!”

Current W&M sophomores,
juniors and seniors interested in interning and researching with AidData should
contact bodonnell@aiddata.org for
more information, and look for public announcements of the AidData hiring process
in January 2012.